Black Magic
by J S Arnold
Summary: When Cat finds herself losing her vampire abilities, Bones will search far and wide to make sure she doesn't revert to a half-breed or worse: A 100% human!
1. Chapter 1

**Black Magic**

**1**

I hadn't ever thought of myself as the squeamish type before, but I felt the blood draining from my face the moment Bones appeared. It wasn't him that caused my stomach to tighten, though my heart did give a little squeeze, but instead it was the thing he held. For the first few moments after he'd entered the cave my insides seemed to turn to granite. He held a man, of about 20 years I estimated, and the body bore lacerations on it's neck.

"Bones, I—" I began, but the sound of him spitting on the ground cut my sentence short. His expression when he faced me once more frightened me.

"Do you know where I found this sod'?" Bones asked, though not as if he really expected an answer. "I found him 'bout ten yards away from the entrance," He took a breath to continue, but my lips were forming words almost without my realising it. He gently laid the body down on the sodden stone floor and looked at me, his face now solemn. "What's that, love?"

"I didn't hear him," I say despairingly, "I should have heard him – I should have but I didn't." This realisation had started of as just suspicion, but now it'd transformed into undeniable truth. "Bones, What's happening to me?"

One moment his face was as blank as unlined paper, as if he had retreated within his mind, and the next there was an expression of... what was that look – was it heartbreak? I could almost clutch and hold the tension that filled the air as he stared at me for a long second. He still gazed at me, but now he seemed to crumple where he stood, his eyes blazing an unnaturally liquid colour. The tiny slither of dread that had been inside me while I was alone built.

"Bones... What's wrong, are you feeling ok?"

"Mencheres..." was all he said.

"What about him? Is he... doing well?" I couldn't understand the pained look on his face. Something must have happened to his grand-sire I summarised before he could answer.

Bones spat again, his chest rising and falling in time with his flickering eyes. "Not for much longer he won't be."

I had heard nothing but a profound respect for the ancient vampire from Bones before – that's how I knew something terrible had happened, and the voice deep within me whispered that it most likely had something to do with me. Not much could rattle Bones, but something had done tonight. I decided to take the offence rather than the defence "What has he done?" I ask calmly.

"He's poisoned you, that's what!" Bones clutched at his head as if it might break apart in his hands.

How could he have poisoned me? I wondered, I hadn't seen him in weeks, what poison could he have administered?

"Not in the normal sense of the word," Bones spat, his tone so bitter that it sent a shiver down my spine, "No, he's used magic."

"But-" so many thoughts filled my head, "why would he do something to harm me? I'm part of his line aren't I – isn't he supposed to protect us?" After all, Bones had made it perfectly clear that Mencheres is my grand-sire.

"Not if you're human you're not, then he could do as he wished."


	2. FairGame

**Black Magic**

**2**

Knowing why I feel so weak should have made me feel better, if anything could, but instead the lead inside me hardens still. I so wanted to believe that this was a mistake, that Bones was wrong, but my undead husband was pacing the floor in anger. I could feel my insides clenching tightly In what I recognised eventually as fear. I hadn't felt fear for Bones since we first met.

"What is his game?" He wondered out-loud, his voice trembling with the building rage. He hadn't been this furious in all the time that I'd known him, and the rage burned brightly in the eyes he turned to me. "You don't think..." he paused, his throat rippling as he swallowed thickly, "that he intends to..." But he seemed unable to continue.

"Get rid of me?" I guessed, the pain in my stomach from earlier morphing into something stronger and even more disabling. I didn't bother to check behind me for a chair before I began to sit down. My backside hit the hard, dusty, mottled floor with a thud. I might have made a sound, but whatever it was I sure didn't hear it. Instead, all I could hear was the echo of my stilled beating heart. If I had no chance against Bones, how could I ever even hope to fight his grand-sire who was many, many times stronger?

"Yeah, this way you're fair-game." He told me.

Fair-game. What did that even mean? Images of Mencheres wielding a shotgun and wearing tan shorts flooded my mind, but that didn't seem likely. I wondered why he would want me dead, and came up with nothing. Did my weakening powers mean that he would no longer concern himself with what happened to me, or even to Bones?

"But don't get me wrong, love," he said, his eyes at last meeting my own, "Don't think I have _any _intention of not giving all I've got to protecting you." He smiled, but the anguish still swum in his eyes and reflected the light from the moon. My own distress burned behind my lashes. I knew, deep in my heart, that all Bones had would not be enough to win a fight against a god.

"What do we do?" I ask, my mind unable to fathom a place where we could hide, "Part of me wants to fight him, but I know that I don't stand a chance. You're no match for him," Bones opened his mouth to interrupt me but I cut him off before he could make a sound. "You're not, Bones, you know you're not. I don't want to lose you – you're all I've got."


	3. Black

**Black Magic**

**3**

Bones cradled me in his two arms as he ran through the forest. I could tell that all his senses were on high alert, likely so he could sense danger a mile away, and this seemed only to magnify my own weakness. I could only smell the vague foresty scents and calogne. I didn't mind the smell of Bones, but being part human again was like being smothered by pillows. I wanted badly to walk beside him instead, but I couldn't be sure that my legs wouldn't buckle beneath me.

"Are you afraid?" he asks suddenly and out of nowhere. He slows slightly as he weaves through the tall oak trees. In his voice I could hear something peculiar, or at least in _his _voice it was strange. It was realisation, that rasp, and fear that tremor. These two things I'd never before heard from him, and they evoked the same reaction within me; Was Bones fast enough to outrun Mencheres, or would he catch us in time?

"Yes." I say, and he didn't dispute my answer.

Another hour passed, as close as I could make it out, before Bones stopped in a clearing between the trees. He set me down on my feet, held me as I swayed, and kissed me long and hard. There was so much in that kiss, so much more than what mear words could describe, like a despair so strong as to be all-consuming. There was anguish in his eyes as he stood motionless, and it seemed as if he were waiting for something to appear out of the brush. Or he could have been waiting for someone to come from the shadows all around us, I wouldn't know.

A snap of a twig made us both jump and turn. We had both been so taught with tension that being released caused us to spring suddenly forwards. Another twig snapped, another crunch of dead leaves, a whisper from the dark. A sound that had started as a growl turned into laughter as Mencheres stepped out from the shadows. He nodded his head to Bones, as if this were a planned meeting, and met my disbelieving stare with a self-satified smerk. Gone was the Jovial demeaner that I had come to expect from this man, gone was the wisdom. All I saw now was a monster in a human skin. This was not the man I had thought I'd known.

"Mancheres." Bones hissed, stepping between us as my guard.

"Bones," he replied, his voice pleasant and, for the time, unthreatening, "How nice it is to see you. I hope you are well," His eyes flickered in my direction and then back. It seemed that he knew that we knew that he did this to me, but he saw no threat from either of us. Outside his comfortable routine, he seemed more sinister than suave, more cruel and capable than I could have ever imagined. Bones, though, seemed unpreturbed by the sudden change in the acient vampire before him. Perhaps he had expected this all along.

"Grand-sire," Bones spat, his usual reverance for the name disolving into ash, "I would like to know what the hell is happening to my wife."

I stirred where I stood, a sick shiver rushing through me as we all connected – Bones staring daggers into Mencheres, Mencheres trying to probe my mind, my thoughts squarely on the danger Bone's was putting himself in. I wanted to run and hide from his scruteny but my legs were turned to stone beneath me.

"I have nothing to do with whatever's happening to her." he said lightly and confidentaly, a warning like a subliminal message in his words.

My legs felt numb and they collapsed into themselves. My whole body seemed to crumple against the strong oak tree. I felt the meger strength leaving me as if I had been punctured by a pair of fangs and I was slowly being drained of what little power I had. Bones turned to see me slumped on the mud floor. Standing had just become impossible, my eyes were closed, and breathing was like sucking air through a straw. Everything hurt and I just wanted to go to sleep.

"Kitten'," I could hear Bones distantly, as if he were far away, but I could also feel him shaking me; my mind swum. My grip on the here-and-now was weakening, I could feel it happening as I drifted towards the fathomless darkness before me. "I don't want to lose you."

A time passed where there was nothing to be seen or heard. I lay drifting in and out of mild awareness, never quite reaching the point where I could open my eyes but able to feel Bones against me. I wanted to reassure him with words but my lips stayed firmly pressed together and my lungs ached.

Black surrounded me, drowned me, consumed me completely.


	4. Lost In The Dark

**Black Magic**

**4**

Whatever was happening was much stranger than anything that had happened to me before, which was saying something when your life is constantly _weird_. Could Mencheres really have done this to me? I had never met a vampire who was so refined and gentlemanly, so this turn of events was more than unexpected. What hurt me the most was how thoroughly he had decieved us, or just me. Bones could have known all along about his duel-nature, but I had had no idea. Looking back, maybe there had been signs that all was not as it seemed; he had always been so terse with Mencheres, as if reminding the ancient vampire to behave.

Distorted conversation, the sound of voices without words - the blackness remained but I felt awake for the first time in what felt like forever. I could feel Bones' presence beside me, though it was so faint that it was barely detectable. I'd only ever felt a mind-blowing vibration from him before thanks to my extra sensory, _special_ abilities, but this was so muffled that I would have dismissed it as nothing if I hadn't known the vampire so intimately. I hadn't ever felt as defenceless as I did now and even the thought of the man I loved handling my body made trepedation rush through me. They could do anything to me and I could not do anything to stop them.

"What the... done to her..." Mencheres laughed manically in responce to what Bones had said. Even blind, I understood the danger, the insanity of that sound, and I felt a shiver ripple through me even through my numbness. "—coming ... human..." his deep voice resonated inside my head, echoing over and over in meaningless circles. Without any idea of what they were speaking about, there was no way that any of it could make sense. My mind was still reeling from the knowlege that we had deseaved, and my thoughts were too slippery for me to latch on to. "It's for the best..."

"Like hell!" I heard Bones shout, his voice so alien to any other time I had heard it that for a spit second I worried that more had happened in the time I was unconscious than I had imagined. "How... for... best?" The words came disjointedly, but I understoof what he was asking. _How could this be for the best?_ There was a pause. "Oh... you're... to talk!" If I wasn't numb all over, I bet I would have felt his foot stamp on the floor—the vibrations-because there was a slapping sound on the ground. I hated having only a tenuous hold on the conversation, because I was confident that they were arguing about me, but already I was being forced back down into the dark pit by hands that felt ice cold on my skin.

"She's too dangerous as a vampire, even part vampire. I should have thought to do this sooner, but things became complicated once she was involved with you, Bones." He spoke as if this should have been blatantly obvious. Had Bones known this all along?

TBC

A/N: Sorry this is so short, I just wanted to get into this story again after leaving it for a while. I'll write more. Thanks for the reminder chinoba.


	5. Black Future

**Black Magic**

**5**

It had been eerily silent for quite a while before I was able to open my eyes, but I still felt alone as soon as I could see. I don't think I had ever been in a place so lacking in motion before in my life, where my breathing came like a gust of wind and my heart beat so loudly in my ears that it was deafening. My heart beat... I looked around me in search of danger, since it only ever came to life when I was fighting for mine, but everything else in the room was unmoving. I listened, the sound continued in my ears, and was hardly able to believe it.

"Bones?" I asked, noticing how the sound of my voice echoed off the walls as if I were in his cave again, but there was no reply. "Where are you, what the hell has happened to me?" Because I knew something had happened to make me feel so weak—drained. Had Mencheres taken some of my blood while I was unconscious? "Dammit, Bones, answer me!" Yesterday, I would not have believed he would—but that had been yesterday, and what I had believed then I did not now. There was not one thing I felt confident about, not even Bones' love, and that realisation shook me to the core.

What was there to believe in if I could not believe in him? I gulped loudly, swallowing the saliva that had built in my mouth, leaving it as dry as sand. _Sand_, I thought, _Desert, Egypt, __**Mencheres.**_ He had said she was too dangerous as a vampire, but did that have anything to do with the weakness and vulnerability I'm feeling now? There was nothing from Bones, if he was still with me, but something else drew in a breath to speak. It was terrifying, having no idea of what surrounded me, and disturbingly human.

"Catherine?" said a low, cultured voice somewhere to my right. I turned towards the sound but saw nothing beyond the shadows. It should have been the first thing that I noticed, the curtain of black which had fallen around me, but the darkness surrounding me was almost opaque. I could see something, a shrouded form as still as a statue, but the more I looked at it the more it melted into the black and became invisible. It was times like these that I wished that I was more vampire than human and my sight could reach further into the darkness.

It was terrifying to feel so at a disadvantage when confronted by a predator with more than five thousand years of experience hunting humans, but I found the courage to speak despite the numbing fear. "Mencheres?" I asked cautiously, unable to control the amount of fear that seeped into my voice as I spoke his name. "Where is Bones?" I desperately needed to know that I was not alone in the dark with a being that I now suspected was one of the worst kinds. Whether Bones was here or not, I did not much like the sound of the ancient one's voice when he spoke next.

"I told him to leave—and so, naturally, he did." He said blandly, stepping forwards with something that shone bright in the reflection of his eyes, which were burning emerald and glowing. I knew that I ought to be more frightened than this, facing my death and all that, but it was impossible not to admire the raw beauty of his face. If he was this handsome in life, it was really no wonder that Patra was obsessed with him for five thousand years. "I wouldn't be so cruel as to force him to witness your murder as I had to..."

"I guess your wife deserved to die, too?" I challenged, willing to use any weapon I could to wound him, even if the only one's I could wield were razor-edged words. I knew that Mencheres had hated murdering Patra, despite their distaste for each other, that it still was capable of bringing pain, but I was in no mood to be fair; if he had done anything to Bones, it was the least that he deserved.

"You are cruel for mentioning her," Mencheres said, turning away so I wouldn't be able to see his face as he thought about what to say next.

"Where's Bones?" I asked again, and I hoped that he would correctly read in my voice that I was willing to fight him for answers. "Tell me, Mencheres..." My voice was a growl as I spoke these last words.

His gaze flickered only a little but it was enough of a warning to make me spin around. My head spun and I knew something about me had changed, probably while I was unconscious and defenceless. My vision slowly cleared, but I had recognised him the instant that I saw his bleached hair, and my heart gave a jolt inside my chest. Now that my heart was beating again, I felt as if all my thoughts were audible to everyone in attendance.

"Bones!" I called.

"Hello, pet," he said in response, a sly twist to his mouth as he flexed his muscles.

"Mencheres?" I asked, weary of the hunger I could see in Bones' eyes as he grew ever nearer. My eyes were bulging wide, "Mencheres!"

"I've seen the future, and you cannot be in it..." he said, motioning to Bones as if to say, _Well, let's get on with it_...

Bones approached slowly, his emerald eyes glistening with excitement, but he pounced on me with a quickness that rendered him invisible to my poor, weak human eyes. The last thing I felt before everything went black was his breath on the skin of my neck as opened his jaws wide.

**TBC**


	6. Chapter 6

**Black Magic**

**6**

"You said... but he's..." The words came disjointedly but I could do nothing but stutter. I didn't know what was the correct thing to be feeling was; whether I should be glad, elated, or frozen with fear as Bones prowled ever closer to me. He had never before looked upon me as he was looking at me now, with a primal hunger etched into his face and working his jaw, but I could still read that it meant danger for me. Whether he was just Mencheres's puppet, or was being forced to serve him by some other means, I knew that words alone would not help me. The moment he attacked I would have to attack too, no hesitations or second guessing – it was the only way I could live to see another day. If I dropped my guard or underestimated him for one tenth of a second it would be over, I would be fully dead, and I would admit, at last, that my mother had been right all along – they _were_ all blood-sucking monsters.

I didn't dare turn from Bones to look at Mencheres, but I felt cool breath on the right side of my neck. I had to suppress the urge I had to scrub the condensation from his breath off my skin, although it was the grossest sensation I have ever felt in my life. The clammy feeling spread like an infection through my body until cold sweat appeared on my forehead. Though I had never been sick one day in my life, I thought that this must be how normal people felt when they caught a virus like the flu: cold but sweaty, achy and light-headed.

The air around me shifted as he took in a deep breath, dropping the temperature of the space a few degrees. "This is the only way, Cat. I'm sorry but it is..." he whispered in my ear before leaving me, without putting much emotion into the words, sounding just as bland as a dejected salesman who knows you aren't going to buy _anything _at all that he has to offer. Even as distracted as I was, I could hear him opening a book and flipping through the pages, one every half-second. Bones eyes were on me, I could feel them burning my skin, and his voice faded into nothing but a faint hum.

"I'm going to enjoy sucking every drop of blood from your body," Bones told her easily, the dark pits of his eyes smouldering a dark crimson colour. The way he assessed her was all predator, "And then afterwards..."

I gulped at his words, knowing that he meant every one of them, and knowing what he would do to me when I was no longer strong enough to fight him off. Maybe my mother had been lying all those years, telling me I was the result of rape, but I had no doubt in my mind that it may become a reality for me in just a few precious moments. I fought back the urge to lean over and throw up, if only to keep eyes locked with the predator—the monster of my worst nightmares and my most pleasant dreams. Maybe I had known, somewhere deep inside, that this was the only way things could have ended.

"...ṯnı͗ _ḫnt_..." Mencheres intoned, his voice sounding as ancient as the words. A pain so great there were no words to describe it gripped me in a vice of white-hot agony and my whole body crumpled in on itself and, with aching arms and legs, I curled into a tight ball on the ground. In the moments that followed, I did not care if I lived or if I died, I just wanted the end to come quickly. "Bones!" I managed to shout through the cramps. I coughed and blood splattered on the floor.

Darkness built like a canopy above me as I lay on my back, choking on the blood which had formed from nothing to fill my lungs, breathing black magic. It was like being underwater, trying desperately to breathe liquid instead of gas, except that for me there was no surface for me to reach for. I was drowning in an infinite pitch-black sea and there was no one to pull me to shore. I could do nothing as the forces hovering above my head swooped down to smother me with dark energy.

Before my consciousness slipped away completely, I thought I saw fire flicker in Bones' eyes that frightened more than it reassured me.

**TBC**


	7. Trapped

**Black Magic**

**7**

**Cat**

Blackness, there was only black, though I felt as though I were wide awake. My eyes opened and shut but the darkness only seemed to grow darker. Memories of fire in his eyes were the only light I could see, but to see the burning in his face was worse than the pitch-black. Although it was black magic dictating his actions, though I knew it wasn't really Bones, the agony of seeing him look at me in that way still stung like a thousand needles injecting poison into my system. The sound of them speaking reaches me, but not the words, not the meaning, as if they are speaking another, alien language.

**Bones**

Her voice carried through the air like a bullet fired from a gun, the impact of it hitting him just as surly. When his eyes were finally able to open, he saw white marble and greyish white walls. He blinked and shook his head, the haze lifting little by little as he stood from the floor. His mouth was salivating but he could not understand why. Even when he was desperately thirsty for blood he did not have to swallow so much, and his teeth were never this big in his mouth. Something _other_ had caused this, and Mencheres' expression gave nothing away. His grand-sire was standing with his arms folded and his back straight, as if he were waiting for something: the other shoe to drop.

And then his eyes drifted down, down all the way to the floor, where a woman laid limply and crumpled. He recognised her instantly just by the curtain masking her face. Her glorious red hair was spread fan-like above her head, her eye-lids not fluttering one bit. There was a faint bruise on the side of her face from the impact with the floor and creases around her mouth. Whatever she had been feeling before she collapsed to the floor, it was obvious that she had been unconscious before she hit the floor, it had been stronger than even he could imagine.

"What-" he began to ask, but at the sound of his voice Mencheres spun around. Bones could not speak while his grand-sire looked at him in this way, but his instincts were screaming danger. There was a rawness, a brutality in the eyes of the Egyptian, as if all his sophistication, the memory of humanity, had disappeared and an animal was all that was left in it's place. "Grand-sire... what is the meaning of this?" he asked, taking a step forwards.

"It has to be done, Bones."

"Like hell it has to!" His fury sent him springing forwards without a conscious thought, an action born of instinct rather than of any conscious thought. He saw him dodge the assault, but not quick enough to stop his momentum. Mencheres was already across the other side of the room when Bones landed with his legs at either side of Cat's chest, his movements so quick that they were a blur even to vampire eyes.

Mencheres straightened from his predator's crouch and smoothed his dark clothes. One side of his mouth pulled up into a wry smile. This was to be expected, he had known that all along, and so he was not surprised when Bones came at him again. He dodged the tackle, still smiling, knowing that there was nothing he could not handle.

"Undo the spell!" he bellowed, his hands forming claws that dug into Mencheres's shoulder. Each time he saw Cat's prone body, another string of curses echoed in his mind. He would be willing to pay whatever price, even at the cost of his soul, to fix this. He would gladly give his life to save her, but he prayed that he had life with her still left to live. They had been together for such a short time, he had been without her for so long, but he knew fate could be cruel and, apparently, so could Mencheres.

**Cat**

****Hands grasp my arms, pulling me down towards some unknown place, and however much I claw upwards it is impossible... I can't get out... _Bones_, I call, _please, please save me_.

**TBC**


	8. A Dark Control

**Black Magic**

**8**

**Cat**

I could hear whispers coming from the dark I floated in, voices that I neither recognised nor understood; spiders, that was the word the came to mind when I tried to imagine what could make the skittering sound. If I concentrated hard on what I could feel, it was as if there were creatures with many legs crawling on my skin. Did I dare open my mouth to call for help when there was a chance that they would crawl into my mouth? I kept my lips firmly clamped shut and they crawled across my lips, trying to find gaps were they could enter me.

Ever since I was a little girl, even when I was cursed with abilites that other children didn't have, I'd always been terrified of spiders—any insect really—because of how they moved. The way they crawled across the tiles in the bathroom or the kitchen always sent me running for the broom, but now there was nowhere I could go to escape them.

**Bones**

Bones pulled his fist back, aiming to punch a hole in Mencheres's chest, but, quicker than even his eyes could follow, his fist was clamped tightly within another. There simply weren't any words that he could think of to express how lost and betrayed he was, but then words had never been of much use to him in a fight. The pressure on his hand relaxed when he reluctantly looked up from where he was crouched on the floor. "Grand-Sire..." he growled, the words coming out in a threatening hiss; gone was his respect, the ancient connection that bound them, leaving only a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Do not try to prevent this, Bones." the Egyptian said cooley, his voice as deserted of emotion as the deserts of his home-land, and just as harsh. He said nothing else, the line of his jaw was straight, and instead drew an elegant dagger from a pocket on his clothes, gripping the handle with the blade pointing downwards towards the floor. His every movement was deliberate and sharp, scorpion-like, as he got into position leant over Cat's body. Continuing gravely, "She has too much power... the potential that the power would be used for evil is too great... I've seen it..."

Bones spat on the floor, his fists clenching at his sides and his eyes burning as if they were on fire. If there was any way that he could disable those damned visions he would gladly do it; they had caused nothing but trouble, and the occasional warnings were not worth the price. Mencheres must have known how dark the powers were, he must have, but he went ahead regardless—ruthlessly. "How?" he barked.

"How...?" Mencheres asked tierdly, between muttering words that were nonsence. "Can we speak of this later?" he asked in a voice that ended the conversation. He put a finger to Cat's forehead and pressed into her skull. He could not deny what a shame it was that she had to be terminated, but he knew it was either her or the rest of the world. He had seen the horrors she was capable of and nothing short of destroying he, body and mind, would suffice.

"How could you do this to Cat? To me?" he replied, "There better be a good reason cos' otherwise there'll be hell to pay..." He had been gradually edging forwards. If he was given the chance to lash out he would make sure it was hard. It sickened him now to think that he had ever thought this man deserved respect – he was no better than the criminals he and Cat had killed together. He might even be worse than the worst of them...

"I would hate to think you are threatening me, Bones..." his shoulders sagged a little, "... but I know you don't understand..." The way he spoke the words only stoked the fire of his rage.

"Explain it to me then!" He could hear her heart beating wildly in her chest and he knew she must be terrified of something, but what? What was happening inside her head? The thought of her being aware, awake, and unable to wake sent a sympathetic shudder through him. She must be so scared, he thought. "What if there is way I can control her, would you release her from the spell?"

"There's only one way to control her, and it is quite barbaric, Bones..."

"I'll do anything!" he yelled, thinking that he meant it.

**TBC**


End file.
